1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display device mounted in a moving body such as a motor vehicle, and having a display portion detachable from a box.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a motor vehicle incorporates a display unit equipped with a liquid crystal display panel, such as a television receiver and a car navigation system. The display unit for the car navigation system makes several kinds of indications inclusive of the present location of a vehicle.
The display unit has been demanded to display the information indicated by the car navigation system more clearly and wide variety of items of information of an electric appliance mounted in the vehicle, e.g. operation status and setting status of a car audio (tuner, CD deck, etc) and an air conditioner.
Because of the demand described above, the display unit has a tendency being up-sized. However, this up-sizing has made it difficult to assure the space for installing the display unit.
In order to solve such a problem, the inventors of the present invention proposed the display system as described in JP-A-5-185875 and JP-A-8-332903. The display system disclosed in these publications includes an enclosure or box and a display unit for information display which can be freely loaded/unloaded into/from the enclosure from an opening portion.
The enclosure is attached to an instrument panel or console box in a state where the opening is opposite to a vehicle driver. The display unit is provided so that it can be freely loaded/unloaded into/from the instrument panel or console box.
While the display device is being used, the display unit is unloaded from the enclosure. While it is no being used, The display unit remains loaded in the body. More specifically, while the display device is not used, the end face of the display unit is opposite to the vehicle driver through the opening portion.
Therefore, it was impossible to limit an installing space of in a limited region of the instrument panel or console box effectively.
An object of the present invention is to provide a display device which can display a wide variety of information such as information for various electric appliances and suppress or effectively use an installing space.
In order to attain the above object, in accordance with the present invention, there is provided a display device comprising: an enclosure; a first display unit provided so that it can be freely loaded from/into the enclosure; a second display unit provided in front of the first display unit in a direction of unloading the first display unit from the enclosure.
In this configuration, since the display device is equipped with the first display unit for displaying various items of information of a car navigation system and the second display unit for displaying other kinds of information such as the setting status of an air conditioner. Therefore, the display device can display a wide variety of information such as the information from various kinds of electric appliances.
Further, the first display unit is provided so that it can be freely loaded/unloaded in/from the enclosure , and the second display unit is arranged in front of the first display unit. The space for installing the first and the second display units can be limited. Accordingly, the space for installing the display device 1 itself can be limited and can be used effectively.
Preferably, the enclosure has an opening portion through which the first display unit is loaded/unloaded, the second display unit includes a display panel for displaying information and a frame member for enclosing the second display panel so that whereby when the first display unit is loaded/unloaded in/from the enclosure, an end face of the frame member is opposite to the opening portion of the enclosure.
In this configuration, the space for installing the second display unit can be suppressed. Hence, the-space for installing the display device itself can be suppressed and can be used effectively.
The above and other objects and features of the invention will be more apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.